


Family, Fireworks, and Festivities

by AlasPoorYorcake



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Crack, Gen, also technically two lines implying sanster if you really squint, i'm so sorry about that i did my best, it has that vibe to it, kind of, lots of butchering of the french language, muffet headcanons that i did not come up with but i think are cool, request
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:07:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25568725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlasPoorYorcake/pseuds/AlasPoorYorcake
Summary: AR. Post-barrier-break. Frisk and Toriel want to set up a celebration for the yearly anniversary of monsters' freedom, but all of the monster cooks are abroad or retired-- all except Muffet.Or, Muffet is lured via Frisk's dirty hacker money into a lucrative world of baked explosives and found family.Written for a request via Tumblr.
Kudos: 9





	Family, Fireworks, and Festivities

* * *

In all fairness, they do try Grillby’s first.

“no dice. says he’s too _fried_ from jet lag,” Sans reports, sinking into the couch in the Ambassador’s office. “sounds like fuku’s doin’ alright overseas, though. she’s _blazing_ through her college courses.” 

From his left pocket he retrieves a shot glass. From his right pocket he takes out a packet of ketchup. “‘sides, forecast’s rainy. doesn’t wanna risk it.”

“Sans, for goodness’ sake! There are children present!!”

In a flash, Papyrus snatches the ketchup packet and tucks it in his boot. Still clutching the shot glass, Sans blinks at him.

“heh. it’s just ketchup, bro.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Pap insists, bending at the waist to wag a finger in Frisk’s face. “Drinking on the job can be a hard habit to break! It is best never to start! Right, Sans?”

“sure thing. always gotta make sure your habits don’t _ketchup_ to ya.” From the couch, Sans shoots Frisk a wink, pulling another ketchup packet from his pocket. Papyrus takes notice, but it doesn’t seem to matter— Sans seems to have an infinite supply in his jacket pockets.

Meanwhile, Alphys enters from the communal kitchen, a cup of noodles cradled between her claws. “M-Maybe if we get Grillby some c-cover, he’d be more r-receptive to the idea?”

“Ngah. GOD. It won’t matter,” Undyne groans from across the room, where she’s been casting spears into the wall like a life-sized dartboard. “I hate to say it, but we can’t exactly force the guy to cook in the rain. Even if it means there’s no chance of a grease-bath afterwards.”

Frisk clicks their fingers and signs, “ _We can’t have a proper celebration without food._ ”

At this point, Papyrus is frantically pulling an endless string of ketchup packets out of Sans’ pocket like a clown-handkerchief bit. As expected, Sans takes this like it’s extremely normal. “don’t worry, kid. tori and asgore will be back soon with word of the human restaurants’ decisions.”

“Not like there’s much of a point,” Undyne grumbles. “None of them sell monster food.”

“it ain’t just gonna be monsters present.”

“A-And, with Mettaton in P-Paris, Burgerpants w-working at Ice-E’s, Nice Cream Guy out of s-stock, and e-everyone else either on break o-or retiring, t-there’s not many o-options left,” Alphys points out, and then pauses. “U-Unless you want to p-pitch in, Sans?”

“nah.”

“Come now, brother, don’t be such a slack-sloth!” The ketchup packet line coils around Pap’s shins like a limp, beady snake. Even as he speaks, he doesn’t stop pulling, and the line keeps coming. “I’m sure with mine and Undyne’s cooking and your penchant for idle salesmanship, we’ll have most of monsterkind fed in no time!!”

Undyne clears her throat, baring a toothy grin in what is probably meant to mask her grimace, but only manages to make her look menacing. “Uh. Maybe we should save your skills for another time, Pap. Y’know, for something a little more… appropriate.”

“Y-Yeah,” Alphys cuts in, clenching her noodles a bit too hard. “Y-You don’t want to s-show off what you’ve learned t-too early, right?”

Papyrus pauses in his ketchup-digging and looks thoughtful. “You may be right. We wouldn’t want to risk sub-par work for the sake of convenience. BUT!! Not to be discouraged! That only means that when the time comes, I will be EXTRA prepared to show off what our culinary training has wrought!!”

“That’s the spirit!!” Undyne cheers, an enthusiastically lobbed spear embedding in the wall with a _thud_.

“ _That still leaves us without a cook,_ ” Frisk butts in. And then they cant their head and sign, “ _I think I heard Muffet’s back. Did anyone ask her yet?_ ”

At the mention of Muffet, the room’s atmosphere does a somersault into uncomfortable territory. A few beads of sweat spontaneously form on Sans’ forehead. Papyrus squeezes the ketchup packets a little too hard, and a few of them pop. Undyne freezes mid-throw, and Alphys barely ducks beneath the wayward spear in time, her noodles spilling.

“‘B-Back?’” Alphys says at the same time Undyne exclaims, “I thought she still had that deal thingie with Mettaton in Paris!”

“ _Maybe I can ask her to bake something for us._ ”

“uh. i dunno about that, kid,” Sans says over them, and for a moment everyone seems to breathe a sigh of relief. And then his permagrin turns ever-so-slightly shit-eating, and he continues, “but hey, if you’re determined to have monster food… what’s the harm in askin’ her?”

Frisk visibly brightens at that. The rest of the room shares furtive glances.

“just, uh. don’t go alone, k, kid?”

And that’s how it all begins.

* * *

“Ahuhu, _votre altesse royale_ , surely there has been a mistake,” Muffet murmurs, turning the invitation over in her many hands. “Our services come at a price. _Charité_ _Araignée_ accepts donations, we don’t donate ourselves.”

“Of course, we understand that,” Toriel says evenly, eyes flashing, yet ever the diplomat. Her queen-act is in full-gear, probably in response to the wealth and sophistication Muffet’s surface home exudes. Or, rather, that her _mansion_ does. “Still, we would appreciate if you could take the time to consider—”

Frisk tugs on Toriel’s dress, and the boss monster trails off. Muffet watches closely, multiple eyes blinking out of sync as she takes in Frisk’s immediate counter-offer: “ _I’ll pay you. Whatever you want._ ”

“Huhu. Quite the budding entrepreneur, aren’t we?” The tip of her unlit cigar, pinched between her teeth, dances up and down as she glances between them. Then, with a quick gesture, a small spider scuttles onto her finger, setting the end of the stogie aflame. “In that case, perhaps we should retire somewhere more comfortable, where we may speak _en privé_.”

Toriel’s paw comes to rest heavily on Frisk’s shoulder. “I’m not sure that would be appropriate.”

“Appropriate? The foyer is no place to conduct business.”

“If the only business you provide has to be done privately, then perhaps we should not be conducting business at all, Muffet.”

“Perhaps not. But seeing as you are not the one proposing the funds, I don’t believe you and I are engaging in any business,” Muffet points out, turning to Frisk and gesturing to one of the grand staircases behind her. “ _Ma pâtisserie savoureuse_ , follow me.”

With that, Muffet makes her way further into the mansion, up the staircase and soon out of sight around a corner. Frisk begins to follow, but Toriel’s hand on their shoulder stops them.

“My child, I… I do not think this is a good idea.”

Frisk shakes their head.

“I merely mean to caution you. Please do be careful. Muffet is… well, she is not one to be trifled with.”

“ _Don’t you mean_ truffled _with,_ ” they sign, and duck beneath their mother’s arm as she snorts. “ _Wait for me?_ ”

“Hah… Oh, yes. Yes, of course, my child. Good luck.”

With that, Frisk bounds up the staircase, in pursuit of Muffet.

The mansion, as it turns out, is as big as it is lavish. It’s hallways are expansive, and adorned with polished oak and birch furnishings. Muffet must have been very successful as Mettaton’s business partner for the last year or so.

The building itself is relatively new, despite its aged look. In fact, with no corners untouched by cobwebs, it would look abandoned, if not for the bustle of thousands of spiders making rounds along the walls, floors, and ceilings. Frisk trips over themselves several times trying to avoid squashing the diligent workers, peeking in doorways and searching for the matron, following hints of purple cigar smoke and the vague smell of a bakery.

Finally, they find the right room. It’s structured like an office, with a large wooden desk, behind which Muffet stands. Frisk steps inside, abruptly buffeted by the smell of freshly baked cobwebs and cupcakes.

“My sincerest apologies about the commotion. Our overseas branch is gaining more traction than we had anticipated, and travel arrangements always displace the web, ahuhu…” Muffet takes a long drag from her spiderweb-woven stogie with one hand, clears the purple smoke with another, and gestures to her guest seating with the remaining four. “Please, dearie, have a seat. Do not mind Mr. Tuffet, he’s not up for _playing_ today, huhu. Tea?”

Frisk nods, though it’s a bit stiff. They’ve only just noticed the giant spider slumbering in the far corner, several sizes larger than Muffet’s old ‘pet’ from the Underground, and stuffed into a cupcake foil. While Muffet’s cigar smells of a bakery, the heavier smell of chocolate cake and icing seems to be coming from its direction.

As soon as Frisk sinks into the nearest seat, ignoring how the chair feels like it’s swallowing them whole, Muffet gets to preparing the tea. All the necessary tools are already available on her desk, among the stacks of web-tied paperwork and miscellaneous notes. A few spiders scuttle by, taking and dropping various papers along the way. An assembly-line of working spiders.

“That’s quite a tall offer you made, downstairs. I’m guessing you’ve got something in mind for me to make. Clearly, something with taste, yes? A brand of… _je ne sais quoi,_ only your dear Muffet can provide?”

She holds out a teacup full of spiders, complete with saucer and a dangling price tag. Frisk takes it with as much grace as a child can when half-stuck in a chair woven of spider webs, and rustles up a few G from their pockets in exchange. 

They politely refrain from taking a sip and set it in their lap to sign, “ _Yes. It's a celebration for the anniversary of the barrier coming down. So... it'd be good to have monster food. But it has to be special. Something that’ll blow both the humans and the monsters away._ ”

“‘Blow them away’,” Muffet echoes. “Huhu… extravagance and spectacle are my specialties, _mon petit chou_. The question is, just how much of my creative license are you willing to pay for?”

Frisk’s response is as confident as it is quick. “ _As much as money can buy._ ”

“Ahuhuhu~! The surface has changed more than just the monsters, I see. And may I ask where this hefty sum will be coming from?”

Frisk hesitates. “ _I… saved up a lot of gold from the Underground._ ”

It’s painfully obvious that Muffet doesn’t believe them. But she doesn’t say anything about it— just giggles, and weaves an extra layer of cobweb into her receding cigar, doubling it in size and shape. 

“Well, then I believe we have a deal, _ma truffe_. As long as I receive appropriate compensation, you will have your ‘special’ goods, come the celebration.”

“ _And we’ll all be blown away?_ ”

Muffet’s responding grin is feral, and a little too reminiscent of the uncompromising spider matron she used to be in the Underground.

“ _Comme tu veux_ , my little pastry. _Comme tu veux_.”

* * *

It becomes clear, within the coming week, that Muffet didn’t quite anticipate what doing business with Frisk would be like.

Namely, that every monster in their rag-tag little family would be offering their services in her mansion.

“Oh, dearie me,” Muffet says, as soon as she opens the front door.

“We are here to help!!” Papyrus declares, fronting the group of monsters standing on her doorstep. Her eyes purview the scene, jumping from Toriel to Undyne, Asgore to Alphys, Sans and Pap, then finally Frisk, beaming. 

With a glance to the sky, Muffet takes a very, very long drag from her cigar, then nods.

And shuts the door.

“s’a bit rude,” Sans says.

“So is trespassing,” Muffet harrumphs. She stares at him, unabashedly. “What is on your head.”

His hand smacks the side of his head, where he’s taped a ketchup bottle just behind his mandible. “oh. this? ketchup dispenser.”

Muffet blinks at him for a moment, then snickers, turning heel and walking further into the house. He doesn’t follow, but for every corner she turns, he’s standing somewhere nearby. “Do not follow me. I will have an escort sent for you when the kitchen is… in decent shape.”

“decent shape.”

“I would prefer to make room before you all trample through me and my darlings’ workspace.”

“coulda just said that.”

“I believe I just did.”

“heh. fair enough. i’ll pass it on,” Sans says. He turns on his heel and walks straight _through_ the wall.

It’s not long before the group outside is fetched by a lone spider with a sign that reads in marker: “Welcome! Follow me!” The winding hallways are labyrinthian, and before long all of them have lost track of which way they came from. At one point, they take four consecutive right turns into a hallway they’ve never seen. 

This seems to make Papyrus uncomfortable.

“You’d better not be pranking us, brother,” he says, exasperated. 

“woah. what? what’ve i got to do with this?”

“This feels exactly like what traversing your bedroom is like!”

“uh. ok?”

“Oh, well, no, actually! It’s not the same at all!” Papyrus exclaims. “I don’t see any dirty socks anywhere.”

“…ouch. low blow, bro,” Sans says. Toriel snorts, and he winks at her. “try sayin’ that one ten times fast.”

“I will,” Papyrus huffs, then treats them to a rendition of “Bow blow, row,” ten consecutive times. Undyne nearly collapses wheezing by the end of it. 

Then she nearly sends Papyrus flying into a wall with how hard she slaps his back.

Then Asgore and Alphys, heading the group in quiet small talk, nearly send everybody else to the ground like dominos as they freeze before Muffet’s open kitchen doors.

The kitchen before them is huge. Clinical and astonishingly clean as it seems, there’s an elegance to the sparse decor that’s strangely inviting, and while there is an abundance of spider webs all over the place, the synchronicity with which the dozens of tiny spiders move over them is mesmerizing.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Asgore rumbles, unceremoniously breaking the moment. Everyone glances at him, and he grins sheepishly. “The, ah, ceiling is much higher.” And indeed, as they all step inside, Asgore’s horns only come up to a few inches below the ceiling. Toriel, though her horns aren’t an issue, also looks relieved at not having to slouch.

“Ah, there you are. _Bienvenu_ , esteemed guests,” Muffet calls from further in, a column of purple cigar smoke belying her location. She appears a moment later, all six hands powdered with flour. “Before I give you the tour, I must insist that you all wash your hands.”

From there, everything goes relatively smoothly. The tour is quick, as Muffet is scarily efficient, and leaves almost no room for unnecessary commentary. It’s not long before they start divvying up the work.

At Undyne’s not-so-smooth suggestion, she and Papyrus are put on destruction duty, tenderizing meat, mashing vegetables, and kneading dough. Their station is moved away from any stovetops, ovens, and microwaves, just in case. A few ingredients still spontaneously combust, but the surrounding spiders put the fires out quickly enough.

Toriel, after an extensive interrogation about what precautions she takes not to get fur in her usual dishes, is set to work doing actual baking, commandeering the heating section of the kitchen with her own added flame magic to cover more food at once. 

Alphys and Asgore, quite out of their elements but enthusiastic to help anyway, do well enough with post-baking decorations and arrangements. Muffet is surprisingly patient with them, especially when Asgore insists on gathering actual flowers in actual _soil_ to use as decoration, and Alphys starts to waste all the icing drawing bad caricatures of monsters’ faces on everything, including the meat pies.

Perhaps most useful of them all, Frisk bounces between stations, helping around at each count and bolstering the room’s enthusiasm. They’re determined to make this celebration the best it can be, and that means refusing to skimp on any part of the process, including every aspect of kitchen work.

And although Muffet has never had a shortage of workers, what with a near-infinite count of spiders at her disposal, she can’t deny the rest of the monsters add a charm to the kitchen that she didn’t think was possible to achieve with non-spider monsters.

“whoops, heh. hey, my bad.”

And then, of course, there’s Sans.

“‘scuse me. comin’ through. oops. was that my phalange? sorry, y’know, having to keep up with so many fingers, things can get a bit out of _hand_.”

For as much as Muffet finds herself enjoying the monsters’ company in the kitchen, she ends up spending more time chasing Sans’ fingers out of every dish he can get his grubby hands in.

“m’just double-checkin’ the work,” he says whenever he sees her turning the corner. “makin’ sure it’s _finger-lickin’_ good.”

He’s been a deliberate menace nearly the whole time they’ve been baking, unabashedly using his “shortcuts” to his advantage. It’s irritating, but at least he hasn’t been leaking “big brother slime”, as Papyrus keeps calling it. She would probably kick him out on the spot if he made a real mess in her kitchen. 

Or she’d just eat him. Whichever occurred to her first.

But, eventually, the hunt combined with the unfamiliar bustle does get to be too much, and Muffet finds herself tossing Sans a spider-approved ketchup bottle before she escapes through the emergency exit to the small enclosure adjoining the backyard spider-baseball field.

Nevertheless, Sans finds her, just as she unties the webbing keeping her hair up in tightly wound pigtails.

“would you _lock_ at that. didn’t realize you were growing it out.”

Muffet sighs, shaking her silky black hair down and letting it weave over her shoulders to brush her waist. She takes a long drag from her spider stogie and leans back on the chain link fence. “The ketchup was a pacifier, not an invitation.”

“pacified and uninvited. my two favorite states of being.”

“Huhu. It appears you’ve been trying to pacify me over the uninvited.”

“heh. busted. guess tryin’ to invite pacifism’s a bit redundant with the kiddo around, huh.”

“ _Comme on fait son lit, on se couche_ ,” Muffet recites. “Ahuhu… you skeletons are quite fond of your wordplay, aren’t you?”

“seein’ is believin’,” he says. “seein’ french is pretty cool, though. really went for the whole ‘paris artist’ aesthetic, huh?”

“The culture is interesting. The language is expressive.”

“an’ the food?”

“ _C’est magnifique_.”

“cool.”

And that’s that. For a while, they stand together in silence, Sans sipping at his ketchup and Muffet absently puffing smoke rings and re-weaving her cigar with all six arms like a complicated cat’s cradle. It’s a miracle she doesn’t seem to need to replace them often— the equivalent pack-count per day of her continuous smoking would surely kill any other creature, monster or human.

“In Paris, I had few acquaintances to take smoke breaks with. But I don’t mind company, not really,” she says eventually, jabbing the tip of her cigar toward the kitchen. “In there, it feels very… _familiale_.”

“uh. that’s… familiar?”

“Like family.”

“oh.”

“Families, like businesses, expand and fall apart. They are built by the generations before them and dwarfed by the generations to come. At times, you can have a glimpse into someone else’s family. It comes with a feeling, I do not know if you know… _saudade_?”

“yeah. heh. that’s on me. didn’t mean to push the family angle so hard,” Sans says, then pauses. “i dunno. i guess it’s been on my mind lately, too. wanted a distraction.”

“Ahuhuhu… then it appears we deal with loss in a similar manner.”

Sans startles, then falls still. He takes a swig of ketchup. “heh. hell. you’d think, as a skeleton, i’d be used to people seein’ right through me.”

“What was their name?”

“his.”

“What was _his_ name?”

“no clue.” 

At Muffet’s dry look, he shoots her a wink.

“don’t let the smile fool ya. i’m serious.”

“Ahuhu… and here I was, thinking you were Sans.” She takes a drag as Sans chuckles beneath his breath. “Still. Better a loss grieved in part, than not grieved at all.”

“i’ll drink to that,” Sans says with a hearty chuckle, toasting his bottle. “an’ hey. not to be presumptuous or anythin’, but… ya ain’t gotta grieve us, too.”

“We’re family by nature, Sans. By race. Nothing more,” she replies evenly. “If it would not cause more trouble than it was worth, I’d have you all webbed and fed to my darlings across the globe.”

“yeah,” says Sans. “and we love you, too.”

All six of Muffet’s eyes blink in unison, startled. With that, Sans thanks her for the ketchup, turns heel, and walks straight into the building’s brick wall, disappearing in a blink.

Alone at last, Muffet brushes a lock of hair out of her face and blows smoke into the afternoon air.

* * *

“FORE!!”

It’s not a good sign that, as soon as Muffet steps back into her kitchen, there’s an immediate crash. A child-sized mass flies past her head, and she suddenly regrets even thinking of coming back inside.

“UNDYNE, FOR GOODNESS’ SAKE, YOU STOP THIS _INSTANT_ BEFORE FRISK GETS HURT!”

“All due r-respect, T-Toriel, i-it’s not like t-there’s any chance s-she’ll miss with a t-target so big,” Alphys points out, then freezes in mortification, turning to Asgore attempting to untangle Frisk’s shirt from his horns. “U-Uh! I m-mean! N-No offense, your majesty, I-I just m-mean— I m-mean I _didn’t_ mean— I m-mean, that was m-mean and u-uncalled for, and I w-wasn’t—”

“You are recklessly endangering my child! For the last time, Undyne, I cannot abide you trying to minimalize what violence you performed unto them in the past by exposing them to increasingly dangerous situations—!”

“VIOLENCE?? The kid’s fine, look at ‘em! YOU just don’t want ‘em to have any kind of FUN with anybody else ‘cause you think you’re entitled to all those years those OTHER kids would rather spend running around the Underground than be with you—!!”

“How DARE—!?”

Before Muffet can even think to step in, an obnoxiously vulgar squelch fills the room, and all eyes whip to the corner, where Sans lets loose a string of _very_ near expletives, tripping over himself several times into the argumentative fray. A moment later, the corner he was occupying starts to hiss, and Sans’ frantic escape seems very sensible, because not long after that, there’s a crackle and a deafening _boom_.

The corner of the room explodes in a mass of licking flames, a cloud of smoke, and the blistering smell of rotten eggs.

It’s only after the dust has settled do they realize that the thing that made the squelching noise was the meat pie Sans had stuck his hand in. The very same meat pie that happened to be the source of the explosion.

Muffet takes the spider stogie out of her mouth, too dazed to keep it pinched between her teeth. “Did someone put _sulphur_ in that pie?”

“I… Oh. That… may have been my fault,” Toriel admits, to a scandalized expression from Undyne. “It was not on purpose, of course! However… I did leave the gas on, as I usually do, to ignite it with my own flames. In becoming distracted, there… may have been a build-up of chemicals I was unaware of…”

“And you’re lecturing me on reckless endangerment…?” Undyne mutters.

“well, i always said your cooking blew me away, t,” Sans interrupts before Toriel can get fired up again. “but i gotta say, i think i prefer the comparison when it was metaphorical.”

Muffet falls very, very still.

“Oh,” she says. “ _Comme tu veux._ ”

“Hunh?” Undyne says.

“Perhaps this little feud can be settled in a very simple manner,” Muffet says, and pulls Frisk off of Asgore’s horns. From there, she spins a cat’s cradle between her fingers, weaving until she has an actual cradle perfect for Frisk’s size. “Climb in, _mon petit boulet de canon_.”

With only a moment’s hesitation, Frisk does as they’re told. As soon as they do, Muffet directs a line of spiders across the room, and after a few seconds, mounts the cradle on a table. 

Once the other spiders are in place, she pulls back on the cradle. 

And slingshots Frisk across the room.

In an instant, the spiders create a webbed net to catch them. Frisk whoops as soon as their flight ends, and they sloppily sign, “ _Again, again, again!_ ”

“Perfectly safe, dear,” Muffet says to Toriel’s growing apprehensive expression. “And perfectly fun. My spiders are sensible, they will catch on to the game quickly. As for you, _mon capitaine_ …”

Muffet swings over to the opposite end of the kitchen, out of sight. A moment later she emerges, brandishing what looks to be a very large, very ornate, and very purple flyswatter.

“Most of what I swat long-distance is either dead or was never alive, ahuhu… but I’m sure you can find a better use for this, can’t you?” She hands the swatter to Undyne, who shares a terribly chaotic grin with Frisk. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have… important business I must attend to elsewhere. _Ruine ma cuisine et je vais te manger_.”

And in a blur of cobwebs and a flurry of legs, she leaves.

“…welp,” Sans says to the stunned room, wiping the remains of the sulfur-meat-pie from his hand on his jacket. “there’s absolutely no way this can go wrong.”

* * *

It goes very, very wrong.

The mansion is almost completely levelled by the end of the day. Muffet has the foresight to at least evacuate the place before it’s blown to smithereens, leaving a crowd of monsters and spiders in her backyard, loitering just outside the spider-baseball field.

“I wasn’t being literal,” Frisk signs at the mansion’s smoldering ashes. At their side, Muffet divides her hair between five hands and absently weaves it into a pleated braid to put up.

“Perhaps not, dearie. But I certainly was.”

“Are you going to be able to rebuild?”

“With the help of my darlings, of course. It should be back up come the morning. Everything we baked today, however… ahuhu… well. It will have to be redone.”

Frisk grimaces. “Sorry. Losing progress isn’t fun.”

“It is life,” Muffet replies. “And I can assure you, it will be happening many, many more times before we are done.”

Frisk takes one look at Muffet’s face, drawn with vicious excitement, and pales.

They realize, then, that they may have made a grievous mistake.

* * *

From that day on, it’s rare that an hour passes without some sort of explosion sounding from Muffet’s mansion.

As a result, Toriel falls just short of forbidding Frisk to visit the mansion, going so far as to try to schedule her child’s days in advance to keep them in her line of sight. Lingering after school with her, getting ice cream in town with Papyrus, watching cartoons with Alphys— anything to pull their attention away from Muffet.

Of course, Frisk takes full advantage of the ensuing chaos of being traded off between so many monsters. Whenever they slip away, Toriel knows exactly where to find them.

Not that Muffet makes it easy for Frisk to be found.

“Ahuhu… she’s coming around the back this time, darling. Upstairs, now, go on.”

She hustles Frisk up the staircase, branching off to meet Toriel at the other side of the mansion for an appropriate diversion. Frisk continues on, ducking through doorways and winding hallways. Over the days, the mansion has started to become more familiar to them, though getting lost is still a frequent occurrence.

This time, they wander aimlessly, until a glimpse of blue catches their eye. They skid to a halt, backpedaling into the room.

Sans is sitting in Muffet’s office chair, sneakered feet propped on the table, bottle of ketchup in hand with a very complex crazy straw pinched between his teeth. “heya.”

Frisk glances backward, as though Muffet might spontaneously appear to toss them out of her office. Or worse.

“pretty crazy, findin’ you here. just missed alphys, actually, heading for the basement. whatcha up to?”

Frisk turns back to Sans, and shrugs.

“dodging, huh,” he says, sucking ketchup through his loopy straw with a gross sucking noise. “tori?”

They nod.

“heh. familiar territory. hey, let’s make a deal. if you didn’t see me here, i didn’t see you here.”

Frisk levels him with a familiar glare.

“what? don’t believe i can keep a secret?”

At their expression, he lets loose a quiet laugh.

“gosh. that’s quite an expression, kid. i’d tell you to watch your language, ‘cept you haven’t said anything.”

Frisk rolls their eyes.

Sans kicks his feet down from the desk, and swivels in the office chair. “hey. wanna see somethin’ cool?”

He taps at the window that oversees Muffet’s desk with a stray foot. Frisk moves around the desk to see what he’s indicating. In the courtyard below, just before the infield of the baseball field, is a strange looking, purple machine.

“wanna take a guess at what that is?”

Frisk huffs, turning to sign, “ _It looks like a cannon._ ”

“bingo. far as i can tell, that’s what’s been makin’ all that noise recently. and how she’s been delivering her goods across the continent so quickly.” He rolls up his jacket sleeve, glances at his bare wrist, and says, “heh. lookit that. we’re just in time. _batter_ up.”

A moment later, there’s a deafening boom from outside that reverberates past the window and makes the mansion shake. Down below, the cannon recoils backward, and a pancake-shaped projectile rockets out of its mouth. In the outfield, a particularly large spider swings a familiar, purple fly-swatter and smacks the projectile into the air, over the mansion.

“heh heh. looks like a home run to me. pretty cool, huh?”

He turns to look at Frisk, and cants his head.

“now that’s an expression i like to see. whatcha thinkin, frisky?”

“ _Let’s make a deal,_ ” Frisk signs. “ _I won’t let mom know you were here, if you convince Muffet to let me get a turn in that._ ”

“…heh.”

Sans finishes his ketchup bottle with an obnoxious slurp, then tosses it over his shoulder. The cupcake spider from before— or, no, this one looks to be a different iteration?— springs into action to catch it, gnawing on the bottle like a dog wrestles with a chew toy. The smell of bakery-fresh strawberry filling fills the air.

“you’ve got yourself a deal, kiddo,” Sans says, extending a hand to shake. Frisk takes it. 

Sans chuckles as the whoopie cushion goes off.

* * *

“You’ll have to choose your explosive of preference before the launch,” Muffet explains, leading Frisk down a winding staircase to the basement. “The stores are low, as we’ve only begun production within the last few days… but I’m sure we can find something that suits you, ahuhu…”

The basement’s low lighting isn’t conducive to sign language, but Muffet seems to have no trouble seeing Frisk’s hands move. “ _‘Production?’_ ”

“Ah, for a new line of pastries, yes. The name and subsequent patent are pending, but not to worry, fair credit and equity will be given to the idea’s progenitor. I’ve already drafted a contract, you may read through it after the celebration, on your own time.”

“ _You’re making… explosive pastries?_ ”

“Ahuhu… we _will_ be, dearie. Try to keep up. Now, about our selection…”

Muffet pauses at a cordoned section of the basement, where wooden dividers separate stacks of explosives. Labels glint in the half-light, reading, ‘webs’, and ‘spiders’. Several unmarked varieties are marked with patterns of said webs and spiders. It all looks as complicated as it looks suspicious.

“I would recommend the spider-splosives for a guaranteed safer landing, but I certainly will not judge a riskier approach, huhu… my most recent test subjects have not had the luxury of choice, and as such, I have heard no complaints so far. Do choose quickly, now.”

Frisk leans in for a closer inspection, humming. “Spiders,” they sign at last. “Definitely spiders.”

“Excellent choice, _mon chou_ ,” Muffet purrs, slinging a few spider-splosives from the pile with a strand of webbing. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

* * *

Being shot out of a cannon, Frisk discovers, is more about controlled falling than actual flight. The ascent is spectacular, once the tingling sting of being ejected from an explosive device fades. It’s the descent, with limbs flailing and panic setting in, that’s the real thrill.

As per the type of bomb chosen, they don’t have much to reasonably fear. Webbing sticks to all inches of them, and a separate fragment of the explosion breaks into webs with the exact trajectory to plot Frisk’s landing. It’s all been calculated to give them a smooth end to the ride— so much so that, when Frisk actually lands, they dust themselves off in an instant, laughing, and start back toward the mansion.

They’re met halfway there by Sans, one hand in his jacket pocket, the other holding his ketchup bottle.

“nice air, kid. c’mon back,” he says, offering his hand with a wink. “i know a shortcut.” 

At Frisk’s pleading insistence, Muffet lets them have a second go. This time Frisk chooses one of the spider-engraved bombs, and laughs in delight as a bundle of perplexed spiders soar along with them. Of course, there is no guaranteed safe landing with this one.

Not that Muffet seems to care.

“Batter up,” Frisk hears her call over the wind whistling past their ears. They get a brief glimpse below of Muffet on the pitch, flyswatter in hand, cranking her arms for a strong swing.

To their surprise, they find that getting fly-swat doesn’t actually hurt. It does, however, lend a lot more air-time, and Frisk lets out a joyful whoop as their fingers brush cloud tops. They undoubtedly become less than a twinkle in the mid-day sky, but Sans knows his shortcuts well, and it’s not more than a few feet away from Frisk's projected landing where he appears, catching them mid-air with blue magic.

“jeez, kiddo,” he says, sweating, setting them down gently in the grass, a few miles from the mansion. “looks to me you really like flyin’ up there.”

“ _Againagainagainagainagainagain—!”_

“…oh boy. here we go.”

* * *

“You did WHAT,” Toriel yells, after picking a stray stick out of Frisk’s hair. It snaps in half in her gigantic paw.

Frisk smiles up at her sheepishly, brushing at the dirt on their shirt.

Toriel takes a deep breath. “My child… if nor for your own sake, then for mine… _please_ consider taking more precautions around Muffet.”

Frisk’s abashed smile stretches into a feral grin.

Toriel takes one look at them, and pinches the bridge of her nose.

* * *

Despite Muffet’s frequent invitations since her involvement, the actual celebration is _not_ held in her backyard.

A field just outside of Ebott City is marked with a series of ground flags to contain the rented zone— a zone which had been moved further and further away from the city in proportion with the increase in explosions around the Muffet estate leading up to the festivities— and at sunset, the area is soon populated with monsters and humans alike.

Standing atop the recycled cardboard sentry station turned ‘skele-booth’ (meet a skeleton!), Papyrus looks out at the crowd like a captain at sea watching the horizon. He doesn’t necessarily have to yell over the noise of the crowd, but he ends up doing it anyway.

“LOOKS LIKE QUITE THE TURN-OUT, BROTHER!”

“yup.”

“WOULD YOU LIKE A HIGHER VANTAGE POI— what is on your head.”

Sans sips from the tubes pinched between his teeth, running up to the ketchup bottles taped to a hat on his head. He takes one out, twirling it between his fingers.

“ketchup helmet.”

“Ketchup… helmet.”

“yup.”

“Ah, UNDYNE! THANK GOODNESS! JUST IN TIME!”

“—STOKED to see what she has in store,” Undyne finishes saying to Alphys, who she has trucked under her arm. “Hey, Papyrus!! Isn’t this a heckin’ SWEET set-up??”

Meanwhile, Alphys sends Sans a meek wave. “Hey, Sans. W-What’s up?”

“nothin’ much.”

“What’s on your h-head?”

“ketchup helmet.”

“…O-Oh! That’s… cool!”

“yep.”

Undyne squats into a striking pose, cutting off their conversation. “Yeah, I just passed RG01 and RG02, rockin’ it shirtless, sharing a soda. It’s nice when people are platonic friends like that!”

"Oh! Yes!" Papyrus blinks. “Sans!”

“deja vu.”

“Yes!” Papyrus says, and then fails to elaborate. “Undyne, were you speaking of Muffet before you got here?”

“Uh, yeah, actually!” Undyne grins, her teeth glinting. Alphys starts to wriggle, so Undyne sets her down and helps brush her off. “Rumor has it she’s got something big planned for tonight around midnight.”

“W-Whatever it is, it s-shouldn’t be d-dangerous!” Alphys pipes up a little frantically. “Y-You know, probably. Maybe. …H-Hopefully.”

“guess the only thing to do is wait and see,” Sans says. “speakin’ of seein’, anyone seen the kiddo?”

“Frisk? Sure. Last I saw, she was looking for Toriel so they could start the—”

“THERE THEY ARE!!” Papyrus vaults off of the booth, jabbing a gloved finger toward a raised stage at the other end of the pitch. “LOOK! Lady Toriel is about to speak!!”

In two neatly coordinated sweeps, Undyne lifts Alphys onto her shoulders and Papyrus hoists Sans onto his. The hubbub of the crowd settles down as Toriel steps up to a podium to speak. 

At her side, Frisk stands tall, their small hand engulfed by one of Toriel’s. They’re grinning.

“As you all know,” Toriel begins, her voice booming over the crowded stretch of grass. She glances down at Frisk, and squeezes their joined hands. “We are gathered here tonight, on the yearly anniversary of monsterkind’s freedom, in celebration. We are gathered to acknowledge not just of the progress and goodwill fostered between monsterkind and humankind… but of each of us opening our hearts as families and friends, to each other.”

Toriel’s speech is only slightly long-winded, but it’s as honest and kind as she is. Not to mention, she clearly hasn’t lost any of her royal finesse or skill, nor her sense of humor, given the lighthearted note she sparks the celebrations on. As soon as she steps down, a drum line kicks up, and the human band hired for the night begins to play.

It’s only about two minutes after the speech that she makes her way through the crowd to the ‘skele-booth’ (meet a skele _ton_ of skeletons!). Frisk manages to pick up Asgore on the way there, and soon the whole family is present for one more announcement Toriel wouldn’t have dared to make a spectacle of:

“Please keep an eye on Muffet tonight,” she says, sweeping the group with a longsuffering look. “Rumors of a surprise presentation at midnight are starting to circulate, and I would like to keep as many people safe and with the same number of limbs that they arrived with as possible. Do I make myself clear?”

Translation: If anyone gets hurt, it won’t just be on Toriel’s head.

“We are reading you loud and clear!! Or, at least, Sans and I are! Nyeh heh heh!” Papyrus salutes dramatically, at the same time Undyne shouts, “NGAH! WE’RE ON IT!”

“W-We’ll do our best,” Alphys says, under Asgore’s low chuckle and nod.

“Sans—” Toriel pauses, squinting at Sans. “What on earth do you have on your head?”

“huh? oh,” Sans chuckles, rapping his knuckles on his hat. “ketchup helmet.”

“Ketchup…?”

“Please do not ask, Lady Toriel,” Papyrus intervenes, mirroring her previous longsuffering tone. “Human!! Undyne and I are going to go see how close we can get to the music’s speakers before our ears break! You should join us!!”

“uh, bro? we ain’t got ears to break.”

“PRECISELY!! I will merely be present for MORAL AND/OR MEDICAL SUPPORT!! Nyeh heh heh!”

“heh. alright, sure. i _ear_ ya. i’ll be right over _ear_ if you need me.”

Toriel bursts out laughing at the same time Papyrus’ bugging eyelights make an appearance. Undyne, Alphys, Frisk, and Papyrus then rush to split before Toriel can make a comeback— “An _ear_ -resistible kind of wordplay!” Soon after, Toriel departs as well, citing a need to help some incoming monsters unpack their trailers on the other side of the pitch.

Which leaves Asgore and Sans alone together.

“hey. heard the florist thing’s really startin’ to take off,” Sans says. He takes an ungodly awkward sip from his helmet.

“Yes. Ah, thank you. I consider myself very fortunate for it,” Asgore responds, looking over the tops of the crowd with no effort. “And I must admit, it is quite a relief to step back and smell the roses, so to speak.”

“heh. finally quit worrying about, uh, _you-know-what_?”

“Ha… I am not sure I will ever stop worrying about, ah, _you-know-what_.” He shakes his impressive mane, a small smile lighting his face. He pinpoints Frisk in the crowd in an instant, his smile growing sad. “I suppose now I worry more about how they are handling it than anything else.”

“…they told you yet?”

“Not since that day, no. I cannot sure they ever meant to tell me. And if they believe I cannot remember… who am I to add unnecessary weight to their shoulders?”

Sans huffs. “nah. i get it.”

Asgore looks over at Sans, considering. “I presume the Hall has not called for you, since we have… surfaced?”

“nope,” Sans says, absently squeezing one of the bottles on his helmet. “not a peep.”

“Well, then. I suppose that gives us more than enough cause to celebrate.”

“guess so.”

“In that case, I will be heading to Muffet’s for a cup of tea. Can I bring you anything?”

“nah, thanks. tell her i said hey.”

“Of course.”

Asgore takes off, and Sans sucks absently at his ketchup, fiddling with the sign on his booth, introducing himself to a stray human here and there, and greeting the local monsters that pass by. 

Eventually, the sun sets, and the stars reveal themselves.

From there, the night only grows in intensity. The band’s music starts to take more and more outrageous requests, their flair for performance giving Mettaton fans a nostalgic fix while hyping the celebrations further. 

Muffet’s baking booth seems to take a similar trajectory.

Her presentation starts relatively small. A lit match here, a scuttle of spiders there. The pastries she hands out are just that— normal, if delicious foods. Pies and parfaits, treats and tarts, quiches and confections. It’s a definite hit with the monsters, and no one is surprised when the present humans buy seconds and thirds and ask for business cards or a number to place future orders.

And then, slowly, people start discovering things in their pastries that shouldn’t be there. Edible wicks. Crunchy sprinklings in the shape of rockets.

Once the clock strikes eleven, and all of the families with children have left for certain, Muffet starts offering to “light the fuses”. She does so with the tip of her cigar only, as it appears to be the only fire capable of burning the wicks. The first pastry to go off is a strawberry tart that spirals high into the air and pops into a flurry of smaller sparks. The second is a blueberry tart, with similar results.

By the third one, Sans is leaning on Muffet’s booth, watching the colors scorch the silky black sky.

“…fireworks,” he murmurs, muted.

Muffett looks up from where she’s reweaving her cigar for the thousandth time that night. “Do speak up, dearie.”

“fireworks,” Sans repeats, attention fixated on the stars. “he and i, uh. used t’watch ‘em together. i think.”

“…Ahuhu. Well, what do you know. Here,” she says, picking a pastry out of the pack, lighting it, and handing it to him. “To fireworks.”

He looks from her to the pastry, and chuckles. Wordlessly, he takes it and tosses it into the air, watching it twist and spin into the night. It pops purple and yellow sparks, fragments of light that sputter and die out above their heads.

When he looks back at her, his grin seems that much wider, his eyelights that much fuzzier. “guess you’ll need help keeping tori off your back.”

He disappears into the crowd as smoothly as if it were a solid wall.

It turns into a joint effort very quickly with Frisk more than enthusiastic about entering the fray. Of course, even then, Toriel can only be contained for so long. She gets wind of the explosives around the ninth time the sky lights up, and after that, is successfully diverted only a few more times.

“Sans, the next time you take me through a shortcut, I am taking away your ketchup helmet!”

“woah. jeez. kinda harsh, t.” He’s back in the crowd and by Muffet’s side in an instant, clutching his helmet like it might leap off his head and walk away. “mayday, princess. can’t dodge anymore. angry goat queen’s en route.”

“That’s ‘Princess of the Spiders’, if it’s all the same to you,” Muffet sniffs. Her six arms are already in motion, gathering up various baked goods, beckoning several small spiders, and hiking what appear to be reins over her left shoulder. Tied to them a few feet away, Mr. Tuffet— similar to the others, but clearly different— stirs, yawning. “My darlings should have another booth already set up, ahuhu… see you on the other side of the pitch.”

With a crack of the reins, the new Mr. Tuffet is off, matron Muffet on his back. With his six enormous legs, they circle the field in record time, though Mr. Tuffet’s footprints leave bits of icing and cake batter in the grass that belie their trek.

From then on, it’s a clean game of goat-and-spider. For nearly an hour, Muffet evades confrontation and capture, while passing around heavier and heavier explosives to the crowd that brighten the sky with blasting lights and spark-reflecting smoke. 

The remaining humans and monsters seem enthused enough about the idea, especially when they see Frisk nonchalantly reaching up to light a few sparkler-type cake rolls off of Muffet’s cigar before dashing around the field with them, sparks streaming behind them.

Strangely enough, Toriel seems to get less fervent the more time passes. By the time she sees of Papyrus chasing Mr. Tuffet across the field, she’s stifling an infectious laugh. She’s slightly less amused when she catches sight of Undyne half-submerged in the cupcake spider’s mouth, a spear raised high in one hand, Muffet’s flyswatter in the other, cackling.

“THIS IS WAY BETTER THAN A GREASE BATH!!” she shouts, tossing a spear in front of her and causing Mr. Tuffet to swerve in another direction. “PAPYRUS, YOU GOTTA TRY THIS!!”

“I WOULD LOVE TO!! YOU KNOW!! AS SOON AS YOU FIND OUT WHERE THE BRAKES ARE!!” Papyrus yells after her, galloping through the crowd that parts in Mr. Tuffet’s and Undyne’s wake.

“T-They’re gonna get themselves d-dusted,” Alphys shakes her head at Toriel’s side, but she’s smiling. “S-someone had better c-catch up to them, q-quick!”

Toriel shakes her head, scoffing. “How is it, upon taking in one child, I somehow find myself gaining five more?”

“Ehehe… Guess w-we’re just a… c-collector’s set?”

A moment later, there’s a strange noise in the distance, and Sans and Frisk suddenly appear on top of Mr. Tuffet, their fingers grasping his icing-coated hairs as he bucks wildly. Toriel balks, but Alphys takes her arm and starts to lead her toward Muffet’s nearby booth, where Asgore is absently chewing on a sweet tart.

Meanwhile, Sans loops one of his helmet straws around a finger and says, “sorry to crash the cupcake, undies, but muffet’s calling.”

“Aw, MAN! Fine! Get off, I’ll turn him around! PAPYRUS! GET OUT OF THE WAY!”

She doesn’t give any of them time to argue, summoning a sheet of spears from above to herd Mr. Tuffet in the opposite direction. Frisk and Sans are gone as soon as the spider cupcake turns. Papyrus barely dodges sideways in time, and Undyne steers Mr. Tuffet directly towards one of Muffet’s booths. 

She leaps out of Mr. Tuffet’s mouth at the last second, just before he barrels through the booth window and into Muffet. 

The spider matron brunts her darling’s weight and momentum with ease, and without hesitation, reaches for her hair to pull out what appears to be a very large candle wick she had been using to hold up her pigtails.

Her hair ripples past her shoulders as she reels her hand back and plunges the candle wick straight into Mr. Tuffet’s head.

“yikes,” Sans says. It’s accompanied by Frisk’s grimace. A few paces away, Undyne stands with her hands on her knees, panting, half-covered in cupcake guts and spider batter, grinning toothily as she gushes, “Dude! That’s so gross!”

“And gruesome,” Toriel adds.

“Ah, _Votre altesse royale_ , I didn’t see you there. You’re just in time,” Muffet greets Toriel with a toothy smile. Five of her arms are whirling around, shoveling any and all baked goods still in her booth into Mr. Tuffet’s gaping maw, but her expression is steady, calm. “Come to see the finale?”

“I—” Toriel starts, but with one glance at Undyne and the rest of the crew, she deflates. “I… suppose I have, yes. As long as it is _safe_.”

“Not to worry, madame.” Muffet reaches all of her arms under her booth and pulls out a giant, purple cannon. Its barrel is significantly larger and more ornate than the one Frisk found themselves flying from previously. “Not to say, of course, that it will not blow you away, ahuhu… Frisk, would you be a dear and be our rehearsal run?”

They don’t need any more coaxing than that, and with an assuring grin to Toriel and a thumbs-up from Sans, Frisk clambers into the cannon, knocking twice on the inside to indicate their readiness to be fired.

Without preamble, Muffet lights the fuse with her stogie, and Frisk is bulleted into the stars, twinkling amongst them before disappearing from sight.

A moment later, Sans disappears, and reappears holding Frisk’s hand. He ruffles their wind-swept hair back to its normal disarray, and chuckles as Toriel frantically mothers Frisk. They push her fretting hands away and pull her in for a hug, which she returns with care.

In the meantime, Muffet attends to Mr. Tuffet.

It’s as much of a performance to watch her prepare him for flight as it has been to watch her previous fireworks go off. The spider cupcake seems perfectly content with his fate, even bouncing excitedly as Muffet leads him to the cannon’s mouth.

“Oh! That looks horrifically painful!” Papyrus comments from the sidelines as he catches up to the group at last, watching Mr. Tuffet being unceremoniously stuffed into the cannon barrel. “And delicious!”

“Ahuhu… indeed. As many times as I have had to bake and re-bake him to perfection… there should be enough firepower for our finale. Don’t get comfortable just yet, dearies… here we go. The initial explosion won’t be enough to set off all of the merchandise, ahuhuhu… so I shall be the accompaniment.”

At that, Muffet leans over the tip of the barrel of the cannon, and kisses Mr. Tuffet’s candle wick with the tip of her cigar. It blazes to life, and with a wave of five other hands, the family all give the cannon some space. Mr. Tuffet’s maw gapes in a terrifying yawn, and with a mock salute, Muffet leaps cannonball style straight into his mouth. 

The sparkling fuse disappears into the cannon.

Silence reigns for a brief moment.

With a deafening bang, Mr. Tuffet and Muffet fire off into the sky, their silhouettes extinguish the stars, then join them as a distant twinkle before—

A series of explosions precedes any actual color, but what brightens the sky a moment later doesn’t even look like ordinary fireworks.

Actually, it looks like Muffet.

And then, suddenly, it _is_ Muffet— the outline of her face, complete with five blinking eyes and a cartoonishly large cigar. New explosions with different colors replace the sparks of the old, giving the firework the illusion of movement. The Muffet in the sky giggles, winks, and blows a brilliantly-tinted smoke ring in one fluid movement, as if Muffet herself was among the stars, rearranging them to her liking.

Except there’s a soft thump in the grass, and Muffet winks, rolling up the webbed parachute she’d woven onto her back. Barring Frisk, most of the group don’t notice her return, instead captivated by the lifelike fireworks painting the sky.

“Ho… ly… sh—” Undyne coughs, shooting Toriel a glance. “—crap. Holy crap.”

“I-It’s beautiful,” Alphys says, to the group’s assenting murmurs.

“Wowie…! It’s—” Papyrus dashes forward, jumping into the air with spread arms, like he could catch the firework in his gloves. “It’s INCREDIBLE!! BETTER THAN THE SUN!! Sans!! What did you call these, again?”

“fireworks,” Sans replies, with a wink towards Muffet. “and the best i’ve ever seen, hands down.” Then he pauses, and winks at Frisk instead. “probably impossibly expensive, too. especially for a kid.”

Frisk manages to look sheepish. “ _I… I’m sorry._ ”

“s’alright, kiddo. just ‘cause you’re a _dirty hacker_ doesn’t mean you ain’t family too.”

They chuckle nervously, briefly catching the bemused expression on Toriel’s face. For a moment, they freeze, but then— “Fireworks?” Toriel echoes quietly. 

At her side, Asgore hums. “Goodness. You remember when the humans developed them, all those years ago?”

“Pulling designs from our bullet patterns, yes,” she replies. “I’d forgotten about them. I… I never thought we would see them again.”

“…Yes.” Asgore clears his throat awkwardly. “Er. Forgive me for saying so bluntly, but… it is nice to be able to enjoy them with you again, Tori.”

The ex-queen glances over at him, startled, then takes one of his paws in hers. “…Indeed it is, Gorey.”

Meanwhile, at the back of the group, Frisk tugs on one of Muffet’s arms and signs, “ _Thank you._ ”

“Ahuhu… darling, I assure you, it was just as much for my pleasure as your money—”

She’s interrupted by Frisk’s arms wrapping around her waist.

“O-Oh,” she says.

“Ooh! Family hug time?? DON’T MIND IF I DO!!” Papyrus exclaims, nearly tripping over himself to engulf both Muffet and Frisk in his lean skeleton arms.

“…Family—?” Muffet is barely able to murmur, before Undyne nearly bowls them over, joining in the embrace. Belatedly, Sans and Alphys follow, alongside Toriel and Asgore.

Encased within a tomb of affectionate monsters, Muffet barely glimpses Sans wink at her within the entanglement.

“told ya so,” he says. “welcome to the family, princess.”

And then a half-exploded pastry hits him smack dab on his ketchup helmet.

Another hits him on the shoulder, then on Papyrus’ back, and in Undyne’s hair. Soon, the entire field is pelted with bits of food, ranging from half-torn tarts to smudges of icing. It’s the aftermath of Mr. Tuffet’s spectacular demise, raining down upon them, with no visible shelter to cower under from the onslaught.

It’s then that the last firework of them all flies astray, blazing into the horizon towards Muffet’s mansion. The resulting explosion is huge, a distant mushroom of light and smoke that harkens back to the first time Muffet demolished her own house.

In response, Muffet grins, picking a blackberry tart out of Frisk’s hair.

“Ahuhu… And that, my dears, is what we in Paris would call, _risque professionnel_.”

* * *


End file.
